7 comments:

A more likely scenario is that the US, Turkey and the KSA are trying to find some way to rescue Daesh and to carve up some “Syrian Wahabistan” which could be used to keep Syria weak and bleeding for the foreseeable future. This is clearly the options the Israelis also favor: to break up Syria into a de facto Syrian Kurdistan in the north, a Wahabistan in the east and a secular Syrian republic along the Mediterranean coast. The fact that all this is in total contradiction with the decisions of the UN Security Council apparently does not bother those who are now contemplating such options.

If the "ceasefire" holds, that is exactly what is going to happen. The Turks however find the prospect of a Syrian Kurdistan intolerable.

Bob: "The Turks however find the prospect of a Syrian Kurdistan intolerable."

The US is too heavily invested in Turkey to allow any Kurdish breakaway, and a Kurdish breakaway means Turkey will leave Nato. The Kurds are going to get royally screwed...again.

So we are now going to add a Syrian Wahhabistan, to the Libyan Wahhabinistan, Somali Wahhabinistan, Afganistani Wahhabinistan, and Yemeni Wahhabinistan, not forgetting the original Coca-Cola of Wahhabi madness, Saudi Arabia. This war for the promotion of terrorism and the creation of demented jihadi states is going really well. Congratulations! We've fucking won!!!!

Bob: "There may be an opportunity for the Russians to be a fly in that royal ointment."

It is, and they are. Politically speaking, the Russians are playing this beautifully. The tensions are building between the US and Turkey. The US will relent and allow the Kurds to be crushed, with arms supplied by the US naturally.

Contrary to the nonsense Trump spews about stupid leaders, it's not that the Kremlin, Putin and Lavrov are any cleverer than their US counterparts (although Lavrov is a frighteningly astute politician), it's simply that the US inadvertently dealt itself a bad hand and inadvertently gave the Russians a good one.

Well, it's possible, but it's not just a Turkish leadership issue. It's an issue that unites nearly everybody in Turkey, especially the hyper-nationalist military. The US isn't going to let Turkey break up. And if it does, we all know who supported the Kurds. More troubling would be the military, who would now be very anti-American and susceptible to advances by Russia and/or China, would almost certainly stage a coup against the incompetent politicians who allowed the disintegration of their country. In any case, even if a greater Kurdistan (Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran) existed, it would be landlocked and subject to the whims of the surrounding enemy states. For various reasons, then, the US is going to back Turkey's repression.